She limped towards the door as fast as she could, her strides getting faster by the second as more and more muscle cells came back to life. By the time she exited the room, the IV stand was no longer needed.

The facility she was in was clearly underground, with the floor and ceiling of the dimly lit corridor lined with dirt.

Her target was the storage room that held her captured gear, the problem was she had to pass the room with the malfunction bots that the burly man was still in. The camera footage of the room showed the two still struggling with the distraction bots, but not for long. Unfortunately, the door of that room was wide open and Ellowyn couldn’t risk closing it and bringing attention to herself. She decided to walk stealthily pass the door. Just after she succeeded in passing, however.

“Who’s there?” The burly man’s voice boomed.

Her spine froze as she held her breath.

“What?” His companion asked.

“Nothing, I thought I saw someone move by, was gonna ask them for help.”

Ellowyn exhaled and continued. The storage room lay straight ahead and she entered with ease. The armored locker that kept her thruster suit opened at her command. She frowned, looking at the tattered straps.Will it hold together any longer? She looked around the room and spotted a maintenance locker. Then she brought the suit over and opened it.

The haphazard repair proceeded quickly. She grabbed the fabric adhesive glue tube, reconnected the ripped straps and reinforced partially torn places. For any torn wires and loose connections, she welded them in place and replaced broken cables with temporary electric cables. The result was a thruster strapped suit that barely held together and will with all certainty, fall apart in a lengthy battle.

She wore it over her white medical gown and took the rest of her weapons - a rifle and two handguns. Then she began scavenging the room for any other useful items. She took a small satchel from one of the lockers and began stuffing it with first aid kits and batteries she ripped from other electrical devices. She also found a few protein bars to restock her energy.

The looting stopped once the alarms started blaring, the burly man had returned to the operating room and found her missing.

While she was looting the room, her crawling scripts had already scoured the servers and downloaded the map of the entire facility. Having no time left, she bolted to a nearby vent, unscrewed its magnetic bolts and squeezed herself in.

The narrow vent corridor was only designed for maintenance bots to traverse, but her small frame allowed her to slip through. But the restricted space forced her to stay in very stretched poses that put even more pressure on her battered body. Even with the system’s pain suppression, she could feel it radiating all over her limbs. Various trap and laser detection mechanisms lined the walls of the vent to prevent intruders, but she already disabled them beforehand.

Ellowyn carefully navigated through the vent maze with the map, at times she had to use her leg thrusters to propel herself upward or to reduce speed from a long drop. The traverse proved much more difficult than she thought, as she had to watch her footing and posture so as to not stress her injured body while fending off the server’s security measures that were becoming stronger by the second.

Her target destination was the hangar where she could choose a suitable escape vehicle. However, none of the vents reached the hangar because the place had its own venting system. She exited through a vent opening in a lower floor and into another storage room, it was the safest option since countless armed robots and guards roamed the upper floors and movement between rooms would be impossible.

There were still many patrolling bots on the lower floor, but the numbers were much more manageable She attempted to disable them through the network but gave up as their systems ran independently from the facility’s servers, and that she was beginning to get locked out of the server as the security measures took over.

Still barely having control over the camera systems, she managed dangerous a cat and mouse game with the security bots by hiding and moving outside of their field of vision. A seemingly impossible task as all of the bots had full 360 degrees of vision. Had the system’s predictive module not kick in, she would have been long dead.

She moved stealthily between rooms using their local vents, sometimes crossing a corridor to reach the room on the other side. Progress was slow since she couldn’t move down the corridor itself as bots patrolled them too regularly.

Then she reached a very large hall holding various advanced machinery that she couldn’t make out through the building map, but upon entering she knew it at once. It was a breeding room. The entire space was as long as a football field and tall as a basketball court. She inspected the glass capsules lining the walls, inside each laid an embryo of various sizes.

She walked further, inspecting other tools. Larger incubators followed, allowing the artificial growth of the animals. She could see the outlines of their bodies, mainly wolves and bears. There were no security bots in the room so she was able to move about freely. It seemed the place was only for incubation, as there were no sufficiently large containment cages and that specimens reaching a certain size might be moved out using the elevator at the end.

Ellowyn had to pick up the pace, however, the server could be booting her from its system at any moment. She already lost ? of the total camera feed. Standing in front of the elevator, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When the elevator reached the hangar floor, she would have to traverse 200 feet of hallway with no rooms for cover in between. Around a dozen security bots and guards patrolled that area and possibly more that she couldn’t see through the camera.

Looming fear gripped her shoulders, sending its cold tendrils down her spine. What if I really don’t make it out this time? Is there a less risky way? She pondered for a second but dismissed the thought. There was no time left and she needed to act if she ever want to see Alice again.

Ellowyn shook her head and entered the elevator. It didn’t take long for it to reach the desired level, but she kept the doors closed to compose herself and give the System time to calculate movement patterns.

The moment the door opened, she threw her satchel out as far as she could. Inside it was a makeshift bomb created by short-circuiting the batteries within. The ensuing explosion covered a good part of the hallway in scolding smoke.

She dashed forward and used the smoke as cover. Her muscles screamed in agony, but she didn’t slow down.

Some bots sensed her location by sound and attacked but with little accuracy. The human guards could only stand still and wait for the smoke to pass.

It was after Ellowyn passed the smoke cloud that the struggle began. All eyes focused on her nimble moving figure.

Bullets ripped the air apart but missed by a long shot as she made rapid changes in direction by using her thrusters and bouncing off the walls.

Applying course correction force

Her injuries prevented the actions from being executed efficiently and the system substituted the errors.

She wanted to deploy shields but decided to hold off until near the end to save the precious System energy. More seconds passed and the System’s predictive module’s accuracy began to drop, making more stray bullets and blade strikes gaze her skin, creating more scratches.

An imposing bot stood in her way, its large frame did nothing to slow down its movements as the behemoth charged towards her at breakneck speed.

She too had begun running at full speed towards the giant bot.

Rifles perched on the bot’s front started firing while it raised its force blade arms sideways, anticipating her charge.

However, the armor-piercing guns had slow fire rate and not designed for nimble targets. She turned her body sideways and let the rounds slip by.

Just before she gets sliced by the force blades, Ellowyn jumped down to the sides and dodged them by a hair’s breadth. She immediately stood up and continued running, giving the bot no time to turn around.

Reaching the halfway point, she decided to turn the System’s built-in force field on to tank through the oncoming enemies. Though it needed a few seconds to be operational.

Three human guards moved in a more organized formation, their more coordinated movements made it harder to bypass by speed and agility alone. Ellowyn tried firing at their foot, but the bullets bounced off their force field.

They stood still, ready to receive her in their welcoming deadly embrace.

Here goes nothing! Using the System’s push and firing her back and leg thrusters at max, she lunged forward and met the guard’s blade with her rifle’s.

Overwhelmed by Ellowyn’s push, the guard lost his balance and fell down. She used the momentum to roll on the ground, dodge another guard’s strike and kicked his foot to make him stagger.

She ignored the third guard as he was out of reach and continued dashing towards the door to the hangar bay.

Just as she was 10 ft from the door, it opened and out came a man in a distinct red on black combat suit. A calm and composed expression sat on his face. His appearance wasn’t in her calculations, which meant he just arrived within the hangar bay.

A revelation hit her just as she jumped aside to dodge a large piece of the wall being thrown at a mind-boggling speed. A hero.

The man’s unchanging expression as he tore apart sizable chunks of the wall just to throw at Ellowyn gave her chills. Despite his large build, the man’s speed rivaled hers and his strength seemed within the realms of impossibility.

And he wasn’t a muscle brain either, knowing that he can’t hit her even with well-aimed shots, he used large pieces of the surrounding walls and floors as projectiles with wide-reaching hit areas. She had to use everything she had to move out of the way. The wind pressure generated by the thrown pieces alone had slammed her into the wall.

There was no choice but to continue, the man stood between her and the escape route.

“Give it u-” He stopped speaking as she began charging straight at him.

He held his arms up and activated his shield arm strap. The strap glowed brightly as the shield projection blocked the entire hallway in front of him and leaving her no opening to get through.

Ellowyn did not faze. With such a spread out shield, its efficiency must have dropped. And while the small force blade on her rifle wasn’t nearly enough to break through, the wire blades on her arms and legs would do the trick.

She lunged, braced her arms in front while pointing her rifle forward and fired her thrusters at full throttle.

The forcefield bent under the pressure and finally let her through. But something hit her out of the air and knocked the wind from her lungs.

Warning!

Lung punctured

Internal bleeding

Ribs broken x2

Ribs cracked x3

Body in critical condition

Ellowyn looked down at the basketball-sized chunk of metal that he threw at her and coughed a mouthful of blood.

“Looks like you didn’t heed my warning.” The man remained expressionless as he slowly walked towards her.

“Sorry but I don’t take orders from strangers.” She sneered and slowly stood back up to face him, her bloody lips curled into an unnerving smile.

Then she bolted towards the hangar door.

He lunged to intercept her.

Now!

A loud explosion shook the entire building to its core, everyone except Ellowyn lost their footing due to the floor vibration. It was the last measure she put into the servers, a small script that caused the power generators to overheat and explode on her command. She came upon it by chance while searching for a more efficient way to power her thruster suit.

With his posture broken, the man’s grab missed her and he landed on the ground.

All the lights went out, shortly before the emergency lights turned back on.

Within that brief moment, she threw herself away from the man’s grasp and entered the hangar. A faint blue sphere surrounded her as the System’s crude force field finally activated.

She dashed straight towards the Armored Personnel Carrier that she already unlocked beforehand through the facility’s network, ignoring all the shots that bounced off her forcefield.

Reaching the APC, she slid herself inside the hatch just in time before missiles arrived and exploded on the vehicle’s back armor, making only minor dents. The APC she chose was a state of the art model designed for fast raids and infiltration. It had the highest armor to weight ratio and an impressive array of defensive armaments.

She enjoyed a brief moment of comfort shortly before bracing herself once again.